May 7, 2010

Shutter Island

I wanted to like this movie - but I just couldn't. The story conceit is obvious very early on, and so all the ghostly contrivances and twists that follow seem trite and silly. The music was jarring - loud and suspenseful when it was not needed, and completely absent when needed. The performances were good, except for the accents - perhaps Leo should stick to foreign accents instead of American ones. Visually impressive, even some of that was flawed, with very obvious blue-screen backgrounds in a few places, and camera placements and angles that served no purpose - they just reminded you that this was a movie and therefore were a distraction. Too bad - I think the Martin-Leo collaboration has so much potential, but they can't seem to help themselves from going to big and ruining all the small things.